Methamphetamines: speed and ice

[Michaelangelica]

Most of the Japanese Army was on amphetamines during WW2.

 

They were prescribed for weight loss here until the 1970s.

 

they were also in Multi-Bs for hangover cures (Excellent cure!)

 

Why don't we have more baby boomer addicts then?

 

But ICE sounds very nasty, scary stuff.

Smoking it????!!

Made in someone's shed by drop out chemistry students???!!

Scary

 

It's cheaper than heroin and cocaine, and easier to get – it can be made locally in backyard labs and doesn't have to be grown or depend exclusively on being imported.

 

Methamphetamine is now the second most commonly used illicit drug in Australia after cannabis. Its use has skyrocketed over the past 15 years, as it's become increasingly refined, potent and dangerous.

 

Like heroin and cocaine, methamphetamine (in the form of its chemical precursor, amphetamine) began life about a hundred years ago as pharmaceuticals – stimulants and appetite suppressants. Doctors still prescribe similar drugs, like dexamphetamine and methylphenidate, for disorders such as narcolepsy or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

 

But over the past 15 years or so, advances in refining techniques have allowed backyard lab operators run by criminal gangs to make and distribute a range of methamphetamine products from easily obtainable substances such as pseudophedrine (found in cold and flu tablets) and household chemicals. Increasingly, these drugs, especially the more potent crystallised form known as ice, are being imported from overseas labs, particularly from southeast Asia.

Methamphetamines: speed and ice - Health & Wellbeing

[Queso]

yup. tweakers. they take your stuff.

[maikeru]

Meth is fast-becoming an uncontrollable problem in even quiet, peaceful places such as Utah, where I live. Here, it's used not so much as a recreational drug as a supplement by young people and women to promote weight loss and energy. It's not unusual to turn on the TV, watch the evening news, and hear several stories of killings or robberies motivated by meth or perpetrated by meth addicts. When I interned in the local hospital about 10 years ago, I saw some people affected by meth. They were quite recognizable by their dark eyes, sunken, deathly cheeks, odd nervousness, and rough, aged skin and sores and scabs (which come from not eating well and sleeping, which hurts the body's ability to repair itself). It's looks almost like a fire consumed the user from within and left a withered, dried shell. Truly disturbing and frightening.